


Passing Radon Canyon

by cher



Category: Alice Isn't Dead (Podcast), Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Crossover, Gen, POV First Person, Roadtrips, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-27 00:49:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17152184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cher/pseuds/cher
Summary: In the desert, strange things happen.





	Passing Radon Canyon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SophiaCatherine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SophiaCatherine/gifts).



> Thanks to Rosefox for very speedy beta.

Out here in the desert, you get some strange things happening. Ask any long-distance driver, I guarantee they'll tell you the same. Some routes, it's like they want to get to know you before the weird comes out to play. But anywhere in the desert, all bets are off. There's no grace period, and no time to get used to how things ought to be. You come in prepared, or you might be in trouble. 

I've always liked the desert routes, driving out through the sand or the dirt, through landscape that's never as empty as it looks. It's peaceful, and the things that are dangerous in a desert—the mundane, expected kind of dangerous, not the weird kind—feel less immediate. Or rather, they're so very much present that when they kick your ass, it's not a surprise. You see them coming. I think that's the worst part of being in danger—the shock of it. So I like the desert. It's always out to get you, and something about that feels restful. 

This trip, the weirdness tapped me early. I'm driving the highways of the Midwest, taking a load of plastic cartons to one place so they can be filled with more plastic products and shipped somewhere else. I should be in Arizona, heading toward Colorado. I've driven this route before, and I should be seeing some familiar sights, but I'm not. 

In fact, I don't know where I am, and while that's not as uncommon for a career truck driver as you might think, it's still unexpected on this trip. 

The sky's a strange color, and my radio stopped picking up anything miles ago. I turned it off; the static was irritating. 

I'm not worried yet; I have plenty of gas and it's hours until dark. I have food and soft drinks in the cab. I'll be okay even if I have to sleep in the truck. 

There are an unusual number of helicopters circling this stretch of road, and it makes me wonder if there's some kind of military base in the area. I guess there could be; all kinds of things happen out here where human eyes don't look. 

Then I start seeing the really odd things. There's a man, his hair and beard so long that they drag the ground. And he's all alone out here, but once the weirdness starts up I've learned to look carefully before stopping to help. Then I see that the man is holding a pair of barber's scissors in one hand, and a comb in the other, and he's trimming the spines from a cactus that's taller than he is. He seems like he's talking to it. Should I stop, or is he one of the things you shouldn't let into your truck, no matter what? 

He looks okay, not dying of thirst or anything. I keep driving. 

Then there's a canyon, and even though it's daylight, it's glowing green. It's the same shade of green that the cartoonists on _The Simpsons_ use when they want to show that something is radioactive. In reality, radiation is mostly invisible, the kind of thing that will kill you—fast or slow but either way you won't see it coming. There are signs up: Radon Canyon. As I pass by, I hear a hum, the kind that you feel in your bones more than you actually hear. It's maybe more unsettling than the glow. 

I don't think I'll be stopping. 

My radio clicks on without my touching the dial. That's one of the least-bad things that like to happen when I'm travelling through a patch of the weird. I wonder what it will be this time: vaguely creepy threats, strange music that comes from nowhere and sounds just a bit off in ways you can't pin down. Or this: a phantom radio station, broadcasting loud and clear in an empty desert. 

The presenter is the kind of cheerful you only get from game show hosts, if the game show was set in Transylvania. 

"Listeners," he purrs, sounding delighted. "A truck is driving past Radon Canyon. A truck passed Telly, out in the Wastes, and did not stop. A truck has driven through our fleet of helicopters, and failed to be apprehended by the World Police."

Oh. It's the "we're watching you" routine. That one's harmless; I actually kind of like it. I spend a lot of time narrating my own life, and it's sort of nice for someone else to do it for me. I'm smiling, as I keep driving. I'd sort of like to try talking to the host, because this one can probably hear me. But talking back to the voices is a rookie mistake and I won't make it. Sometimes that temptation is part of the weird. 

"The driver of the truck is an interloper, but haven't we all been interlopers at some time in our lives? Citizens, if you see this truck, be kind. I get the feeling," and the host drops his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, still sounding excited, "I get the feeling that she just might make a good friend to our own Tamika Flynn."

Wow, this station is _involved_. That's a whole phantom town out there, I'll bet. And then I am worried, because those _are_ dangerous. A phantom town, you find your way in, you can't find your way out again all that easily. I keep staring right at the road, and don't look for any exits or turns. If I see one, I might turn down it. I might not be able to help myself. 

The voice on the radio talks on, starts in on a traffic report section that immediately turns into an existential soliloquy. The voice is mesmerizing, and therefore dangerous. I keep my eyes on the road, and try not to hold onto the steering wheel too hard. That's asking for trouble, if you're a driver. You can't react fast enough, if you drive tense. 

There are still helicopters overhead, but now they look like ordinary news choppers. Maybe something big has happened, up ahead. 

I start to look around me again. I recognize this place, and it's a mundane town I've been to before.

The radio clicks off.

Maybe one day, I'll visit again. That voice was appealing, in a way desert weirdness usually isn't. 

I breathe in and out again, and keep driving through what is definitely Arizona now. And I keep my eyes on the road.


End file.
